A History of the Twentieth Century

Martin Gilbert, author of the multivolume biography of Winston Churchill and other brilliant works of history, chronicles world events year by year, from the dawn of aviation to the flourishing technology age, taking us through World War I to the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt as president of the United States and Hider as chancellor of Germany.

The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service

A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert here tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missions. The Art of Intelligence draws from the full arc of Henry Crumpton's espionage and covert action exploits to explain what America's spies do and why their service is more valuable than ever.

Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

Pulitzer Prize, General nonfiction, 2016. When Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. In Black Flags, an unprecedented account of the rise of ISIS, Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swaths of Syria and Iraq.

Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the US Foreign Service, 2nd Edition

Career Diplomacy is an insider's guide that examines the foreign service as an institution, a profession, and a career. Harry W. Kopp and Charles A. Gillespie, both of whom had long and distinguished careers in the foreign service, provide a full and well-rounded picture of the organization, its place in history, its strengths and weaknesses, and its role in American foreign affairs. Based on their own experiences and through interviews, the authors lay out what to expect in a foreign service career.

Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story

Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story is the spellbinding memoir of Devine's time in the CIA, where he served for more than 30 years, rising to become the acting deputy director of operations, responsible for all of the agency's spying operations. This is a story of intrigue and high-stakes maneuvering - all the more gripping when the fate of our geopolitical order hangs in the balance. But this audiobook also sounds a warning to our nation's decision makers.

Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs from Communism to Al-Qaeda

Now, in the first book ever written about this ultrasecretive department, the former director of OTS teams up with an internationally renowned intelligence historian to give listeners an unprecedented look at the devices and operations deemed "inappropriate for public disclosure" by the CIA just two years ago.

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

This is a sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans, and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States.

Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield

From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond, Scahill speaks to the CIA agents, mercenaries, and elite Special Operations Forces operators who populate the dark side of American war-fighting. He goes deep into al Qaeda-held territory in Yemen and walks the streets of Mogadishu with CIA-backed warlords. We also meet the survivors of US night raids and drone strikes - including families of US citizens targeted for assassination by their own government - who reveal the human consequences of the dirty wars the United States struggles to keep hidden.

The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War against alQaeda

On September 12, 2001, FBI Special Agent Ali H. Soufan was handed a secret file. Had he received it months earlier—when it was requested—the attacks on New York and Washington could have been prevented. During his time on the front lines, Soufan helped thwart plots around the world and elicited some of the most important confessions from terrorists in the war against alQaeda—without laying so much as a hand on them.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?

Inside the C.I.A.

Based on extensive research and hundreds of interviews, including two with active directors of Central Intelligence, William H. Webster and Robert M. Gates, and with three former D.C.I.s, Inside the C.I.A. is the first in-depth, unbiased account of the Agency's core operations, its abject failures, and its resounding successes.

See No Evil

In his explosive New York Times best seller, top CIA operative Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides startling evidence of how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA's efforts to root out the world's deadliest terrorists, allowing for the rise of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the continued entrenchment of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror

An unprecedented high-level master narrative of America's intelligence wars from the only person ever to helm both the CIA and NSA, at a time of heinous new threats and wrenching change. For General Michael Hayden, playing to the edge means playing so close to the line that you get chalk dust on your cleats. Otherwise, by playing back, you may protect yourself, but you will be less successful in protecting America.

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth

Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Mazzetti examines secret wars over the past decade, tracking key characters from the intelligence and military communities across the world. Among the characters we meet in The Way of the Knife are a young CIA officer dropped into the tribal areas to learn the hard way how the spy games in Pakistan are played; an Air Force test pilot who fired the first drone missile in the Nevada desert; and a chain-smoking Pentagon official who ran an off-the-books spying operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

On September 11, 2001, Doug Laux was a freshman in college, on the path to becoming a doctor. But with the fall of the Twin Towers came a turning point in his life. After graduating, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, determined to get himself to Afghanistan and into the center of the action. Through persistence and hard work, he was fast-tracked to a clandestine operations position overseas. Dropped into a remote region of Afghanistan, he received his baptism by fire.

The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA

Many books, fiction and nonfiction alike, purport to probe the inner workings of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Many attempt to create spine-tingling suspense or allege that America's civilian spy operation has run amok and been infested with rogues and criminals. But this book is different. In fact it’s a unique straightforward, honest, surprisingly captivating memoir by one of the CIA's most well-known and honored career officers.

The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East

This is a book rife with revelations, from the secret communications between the Obama administration and the Iranian government to dispatches from the front lines of the new field of financial warfare. For listeners of Steve Coll's Ghost Wars and Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower, The Iran Wars exposes the hidden history of a conflict most Americans don't even realize is being fought but whose outcome could have far-reaching geopolitical implications.

Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden - from 9-11 to Abbottabad

From the author of the New York Times best-selling Holy War, Inc., this is the definitive account of the decade-long manhunt for the world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda expert and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen paints a multidimensional picture of the hunt for bin Laden over the past decade, including the operation that killed him.

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For the last 60 years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved America's confidence.

The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy

During the Cold War, world superpowers amassed nuclear arsenals containing the explosive power of one million Hiroshimas. The Soviet Union secretly plotted to create the "Dead Hand," a system designed to launch an automatic retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States, and developed a fearsome biological warfare machine. President Ronald Reagan, hoping to awe the Soviets into submission, pushed hard for the creation of space-based missile defenses.

Since the death of Osama Bin Laden, interest in counterterrorism is at an all-time high. Most people don’t know that Bin Laden’s death is the culmination of years of covert operations and tactics largely overseen by Jose Rodriguez and built on by his successors. Rodriguez’s sometimes controversial tenure as Chief of the Agency’s Counterterrorism Center involved CIA officers capturing and detaining key senior Al Qaeda operatives and implementing Enhanced Interrogation Techniques....

Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History

Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the 16th century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces listeners to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.

Lions of Kandahar: The Story of a Fight Against All Odds

Southern Afghanistan was slipping away. That was clear to then-Captain Rusty Bradley as he began his third tour of duty there in 2006. The Taliban and their allies were infiltrating everywhere, poised to reclaim Kandahar Province, their strategically vital onetime capital. To stop them, the NATO coalition launched Operation Medusa, the largest offensive in its history. The battlefield was the Panjwayi Valley, a densely packed warren of walled compounds that doubled neatly as enemy bunkers.

America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History

From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Andrew J. Bacevich, one of the country's most respected voices on foreign affairs, offers an incisive critical history of this ongoing military enterprise - now more than 30 years old and with no end in sight.

Publisher's Summary

Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 2005

The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan.

With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998.

What the Critics Say

"Ghost Wars is a complex study of intelligence operations and an invaluable resource for those seeking a nuanced understanding of how a small band of extremists rose to inflict incalculable damage on American soil." (Amazon.com review)

Ghost Wars may prove to be the best book I read in 2013. It tells the story of the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to the terror attacks in 2001. But that's not all it is. You will meet the directors of the CIA and see how their personalities influence the agency. You will learn about the Washington political climate under different presidencies and see how they cripple any potential to cure Afghanistan of its extremism. You will watch how the outcast younger son of a prominent family, named Osama bin Laden, sets up an empire in the ruined countryside.

The writing avoids analysis until the end, letting you examine events as they unfold with amazing clarity and detail. The narration is crisp and exciting without being overly-dramatized. When the wrap up finally comes it is stunning and insightful. This is an amazing book, filled with knowledge, rich storytelling, and thoughtfulness. You deserve to read it.

What made the experience of listening to Ghost Wars the most enjoyable?

great story telling, accurate and abundant information, unbiased reporting.

What aspect of Malcolm Hillgartner’s performance would you have changed?

the russian helicopter in the book is a Mil-17, through out the read, he reads it as an MiG 17. for someone with a decent military hardware background, it drove me nuts. couple of other similar misuse of technical terms.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no

Any additional comments?

glitches in the recording, skipped lines and sentences. could be a bad burn to CD...

What made the experience of listening to Ghost Wars the most enjoyable?

Like many others, I want to understand how the United States got into the current mess in Afghanistan. This is the first book I've read that provides, in a truly in depth and objective manner. the always ignored back story. Anyone who cares to voice an opinion on future policy decisions in the Middle East should be familiar with this book. The author's objective presentation makes the story just that much harder to hear.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The author's cold blooded description of the myriad ways in which the United States was manipulated by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for more than 20 years.

Have you listened to any of Malcolm Hillgartner’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have,and enjoy his narration. For some reason however, in the first half of this book, sentences were often clipped off at the end, giving the reading a sort of chopped off sound. This problem seemed to disappear in the second half of the book.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. I actually spent more than 6 months listening to this book, mostly in the car, and I'm glad I took the time to go through it slowly. The tragedy builds slowly, piece by piece, until the eve of 9/11.

Any additional comments?

No book since a "Bright, Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan has made a greater impression on me in terms of historical understanding.

This book offers a very in-depth look at U.S. involvement in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. The story comes across as factual and well-documented; I did not pick up any noticeable traces of a political ideology, just a well-reported story based on facts as presented by the author. The book is well read by Malcolm Hilgartner, to the extent that I would be more likely to purchase an audio book if he is the narrator. The technical production of the book is slightly lacking in a few spots where the audio stops abruptly and restarts, but overall it sounds good and I don't think anything is missed due to these small annoyances.

Mistakes were made, by Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43. Bush 41's policies put the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan, Clinton kept them there and Bush 43 was distracted by a VP and a Condi who were uninformed and uninterested. We armed the "resistance" fighters and abandoned them when the "resistance" got rid of the Russians. We relied on biased, self-serving "intelligence" from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, both countries supported the Taliban. We gave millions to Pakistan, much of which was diverted to personal accounts, and succeeded in tipping the balance toward the military intelligence side and away from the civil executive/legislative side, destabilizing a nuclear power.

Were there good outcomes? Well, the Russian economy imploded, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Republic disintegrated. Would the Wall have fallen anyway? Maybe. We'll never know.

Good news? The Cold War was over. Bad news? We entered the era of terrorism. We don't know how this era will end but, thanks to this book, we know how it began.

This is a wonderfully researched book. I listened to this and The Looming Tower in quick succession. I found it to be the far better of the two. Coll is insightful and is very careful to not overstep or over-interpret his source material. I find him trustworthy and honest and evenhanded. He is also a gifted writer. It was a great listen and was well performed by Malcolm Hillgartner.

Steve Coll's telling of the events antecedent to the events of 11 September 2001 is gripping. This is THE authoritative history of the dawning of the 21st century, whose reverberations are still playing out today. I read it back when it came out, but this updated version has some original sources now willing to go on the record. Excellent story, writing and performance. Make this your next read.